Various telephony features are provided to users of communication devices to facilitate their telephonic communications. Examples of telephony features include call waiting, call forwarding, “find me/follow me” (FM/FM) call forwarding, distinctive ringing, selective call rejection, selective call acceptance, outgoing call blocking (or barring), etc.
In some cases, one or more telephony features subscribed to by a party may need to be configured in order to be applied to process calls as intended by the party. This is typically achieved by configuring information regarding processing of calls involving the party, in particular, information regarding each of these one or more telephony features.
For example, for a FM/FM call forwarding feature whereby an incoming call is to be forwarded to a plurality of communication devices respectively associated with a plurality of telephone numbers either simultaneously or sequentially (e.g., until it is answered or all the telephone numbers have been used and the call remains unanswered, in which case it can be forwarded to a voicemail system), the information regarding the FM/FM call forwarding feature may comprise the plurality of telephone numbers, a sequence in which they are to be used or an indication to use all of them simultaneously, and possibly other information (e.g., one or more periods of time during which this feature is to be applied, one or more telephone numbers associated with one or more communication entities originating calls to which this feature is to be applied, etc.). For a distinctive ringing feature whereby incoming calls destined for a communication device are to be announced by different audio signals (e.g., ring tones or songs) produced by the communication device when they originate from communication entities associated with specific telephone numbers, the information regarding the distinctive ringing feature may comprise, for each of the communication entities, the specific telephone number associated therewith and information regarding a specific audio signal to be produced when an incoming call originates therefrom, and possibly other information. For an outgoing call barring feature whereby an outgoing call originating from a communication device and destined for any of one or more communication entities, each associated with a predetermined telephone number, is to be prevented from being established, the information regarding the outgoing call barring feature may comprise, for each of the one or more communication entities, the predetermined telephone number associated therewith. Various other examples of information regarding a given telephony feature are possible for other telephony features.
Thus, when one or more telephony features subscribed to by a party need to be configured, the party is usually required to interact with a representative, an interactive voice response (IVR) unit, or a data network site (e.g., a web site) associated with a provider of these features in order to configure information regarding each of these features. In some situations, this process can be inconvenient, impractical and/or inefficient. For example, when initially provisioning a particular telephony feature (e.g., a FM/FM call forwarding feature) for which the information regarding that feature may need to cover various scenarios (e.g., origin and time of incoming calls, sequence of telephone numbers to use, etc.), the party may be required to think of and consider these scenarios ahead of time in order to provide all the information for correct application of that feature. This is often not readily achievable and can result in the party needing to modify the information one or more times in order to cause correct application of the particular telephony feature. Moreover, when realizing that a change needs to be made to how the particular telephony feature is applied, the party may not be in a position to immediately interact with the representative, IVR unit, or data network site to effect the change. This may result in the party forgetting that the change needs to be made and the change not being effected. In these and other situations, it is apparent that existing ways of configuring telephony features are inconvenient, impractical and/or inefficient.
There thus exists a need for improvements directed to facilitating configuration of information regarding processing of calls involving a party, in particular, information regarding one or more telephony features subscribed to by the party.